Woop, woop…Gangnam Style becomes a 2bn YouTube sensation

South Korean rapper Psy becomes the first person to top 2 billion video hits on YouTube

South Korean rapper Psy’s Gangnam Style song and dance routine has become the first YouTube video to be watched more than two billion times.

The 36-year-old’s hit, which became an instant dance craze when it was posted in July 2012, is easily the most watched YouTube video in history with Justin Bieber's video for the track Baby the only artist to come close. But Bieber has a mere one billion hits.

Psy's track was named after the neighbourhood of Gangnam in Seoul, South Korea where he grew up and his dance was copied by millions of people across the world, including then United Nations general secretary Ban Ki Moon and a group of English public school boys with their distinctive Eton-style parody.

Psy's follow up song Gentleman has also been popular – so far it has notched up 700 million views.

His success has seen him win one of South Korea's highest cultural honours - the Okgwan Order Of Cultural Merit - but it has also had its downsides.

Last year he tweeted a photo of himself covering his face and complaining that stardom has taken a toll.

"The problem is my music video is more popular than I am," he has also said. "So I've got to overcome my music video first."